


Surrender is Stronger

by hillbillied



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Limbs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5132258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hillbillied/pseuds/hillbillied
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He won't let the man he loves die. And if that makes him a coward, then Don's okay with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hatchered](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatchered/gifts).



> A fix-it that doesn't really fix much. Dedicated to Roe.
> 
> A.K.A. Skip Muck survives _The Breaking Point._

"J-Just-"

_No_ , he thought, _don't say that_. Don't say that. Stop right there. He wanted to push his hands over his friend's mouth, force the words back inside. Because the was no 'just' out here.

Because there was no justice.

"J-Just-" His friend could barely get the words out, between the blood on his tongue and the freezing chill and that gaping, gaping pain- "Just k-kill me...!"

 

 

Twenty-two minutes earlier, and there was no question of those words being spoken.

Because twenty-two minutes earlier was a blissful time, when both of them were smiling and neither of them could imagine asking such a question.

Malarkey was swapping cigarettes with Luz, waving the comedian off as he trailed behind his two best friends. They'd invited him for what might have been a mischievous game of cards, since their collective Luckies were going to be on the line.

A lot could change in sixty seconds.

Twenty-one minutes earlier marked the first shell exploding. The first resounding boom, the first tree shattering like glass under the artillery's power. Awe-inspiring.

Suddenly Don wasn't walking after Muck and Penkala - he was running. Whipping through a blur of snow and smoke, shrapnel and cascading dirt. He couldn't see, he swore it. Could only clutch his rifle and race blindly.

All that mattered was the frosted coats in front of him, the pair of men sprinting towards what must be their foxhole. A last ditch hope of shelter. The rest of Easy disappeared behind them, Malarkey wasn't sure where he was.

Penkala dropped, dived into the relative safety of the dug-out. Skip stopped - the stupid, _stupid_ man - to make sure Don was still behind.

They were shouting for him to catch up. Idiots.

A branch, or maybe a shell blast, or uneven snow - something - snagged the redhead's foot. His chest hit the ground with a grunt and a shower of ice. He would have laughed, joked about having two left feet, had Skip not been screaming at him to take cover.

They must have been a hundred feet behind the line. There wasn't another foxhole in sight. Just the three of them.

Twenty minutes earlier, the foxhole exploded.

Like the most horrific firework, a blinding light. As if an angel crashed into the ground over Penkala's head.

Don could only watched, frozen against the snow. Hands still scrabbling against the dirt to get up. He stopped struggling then, mouth agape as all thoughts of laughter were wiped from his mind.

His ears rung. He couldn't see past that burst of artillery's light. He blinked, and then there was only smoke. Skip wasn't shouting anymore. Penk had disappeared.

Nineteen minutes earlier.

It was a mess, it was all red. Red and red and black and red. Surrounded by white, everything around them was white.

His scream felt like ash on his tongue. (Or maybe there was just ash in his mouth.) An inhuman mix of Penkala and Skip's names, a roaring shout that quickly melted away under the continuing explosions and pounding of shells upon earth.

Eighteen minutes earlier.

Don got up. Found his grip on the ground and scrambled in the snow. Was on his feet in a frenzy, stumbling and swaying as another tree's bones rained down on his head. He'd lost his helmet somewhere. He took shelter under his arms instead.

The foxhole was no more.

It was a crater now. _Just_ a crater.

And in his delirium, Malark could only stare. Pant and gasp for air, at the red and the black and the charred pieces of what was once their sanctuary. Their last ditch hope.

Seventeen minutes, and he heard the voice beside him.

It wasn't crying medic, instead simply gasping for air. Trying to fill its owner's lungs and let him breathe again, unable to speak from shock or pain or both.

Don's knees hit the ground as another hailstorm of earth flew over. A handful of parade confetti, made from mud and stones. His hands were shaking, unskilled and untrained in everything he was suddenly required to do.

How was he to know he would be forced to play medic?

Skip was looking up at the sky like it was the most humbling thing he'd ever seen. Eyes wide, stare vacant and aimed far above the cloudless stretch of Heavens. His chest kept hitching, jerking. He was drowning, that was all Don could think. Drowning in the ash and the blood and the dirt smearing both their faces. _Suffocating_.

Those bleary eyes turned on Malark as he leant over his friend, shaking hands reaching out to claw desperately at the redhead's uniform. There might have been words forming in Don's mouth, spilling out in a babble of stutters and _bullshit_.

_It's okay, Skip. I'm here, Skip. It's not as bad as it looks, Skip. You're gonna be alright, Skip._

The young man beside him took each sweet word as gospel, _always had_ , eyes focused only on the figure kneeling over him. Skip's breathing gave a violent hitch as he spluttered, and even still he tried to nod, terrified. Reassuring Malark that he'd heard him. That he believed it.

Every piece of comfort he stammered was a _lie_ , Don realised, as his gaze travelled down over his friend's body - but he rattled them off regardless. The words stopped abruptly as his eyes dragged over the man, thrown ten feet by the blast, flipped over himself to be left for dead on his back.

All sound dried up in Malark's throat as he looked at his friend. Shells still exploded across the forest, their surroundings nothing but noise and shrieking artillery. But there was silence between them

Sixteen minutes earlier, Don saw that Skip had lost his legs.

Just above the knee, both of them, the wrath of the shell that hit Penkala ripping through his friend like he'd been nothing more than paper. It was firepower he wished the world had never seen men harness.

There was no white snow near them now. Only black. And even more red.

Fifteen minutes and Don finally tore his eyes away from the burnt flesh and spreading gore. His gaze moved slowly, jarring with each motion, until he could meet Skip's eyes again. The man still stared up at him, his chest moving heavily now, heaving up and down, up and down. Still drowning.

Still _dying_.

And since Currahee, they've been able to read each other. Communicate with few words and little more than expressions.

So when Don turned back, looked down at his friend with a face of desperation and shock and _regret_ \- Skip knew it was bad. Worse, even, than he could feel. The pain was a blur, a burning, throbbing, stinging mass that he couldn't make sense of.

The expression Malark gave him wasn't.

He knew.

The stunned, wide-eyed stare directed up at Don's face changed then. It became a look of terror.

Fourteen minutes earlier they were screaming for a medic.

At least, Malark was. Every time Skip opened his mouth, only blood and whimpers escaped.

Don shushed him, forcing the comfort out between the broken screams he let out into the trees, begging for a medic, for Doc Roe, for _anyone_. The wretched howl of a wounded animal, cracking his voice and driving him hoarse, the scorching in his throat only urging him to shout harder, _louder_.

Help didn't appear, thirteen minutes earlier. No medic came running, emerging triumphantly to their rescue.

No such miracle was allowed.

Twelve minutes.

A shrill choking sound broke the air, Malarkey's voice finally breaking under the strain of his screams. Chest heaving, drawing in a gulp of air as he coughed and spluttered, like he was suffocating.

_Guess that made two of them._

Nine minutes earlier, and the sound of falling shells began to ease.

Somehow, there was no celebration. Only a stretching quiet, endless and peppered with gunfire and Skip's laboured panting. Nobody else in sight amongst the smog and tumbling snow. Still no medic. No aid.

Don stopped shouting eight minutes earlier, throat parched and raw. It wasn't the pain. He'd scream to his last breath - if he thought there was any point. (There wasn't.)

They were alone. So far behind their own front, in as much danger as they would be amongst the enemy.

Malark's fingers dug into the soaked dirt, palms coming back bloody. Then they found Skip's shoulders, pawing desperately for a grasp on his webbing.

Both their uniforms were red now.

He must've been talking in those following minutes, Don realised. Babbling, unable to hear himself. All control of his voice lost as he tried desperately to reassure, _to comfort_ , to explain as he hauled his friend up into his arms. Hands looped around the man's chest, flooded with apologies as Skip's shouts of agony hit his ears.

Ice broke, crunching under his boots as he backpedalled - rushing, scrambling to go faster. Bastogne, the aid station, it was all within reach. It was. _It was._

_We'll get you patched up, Skip. They'll help you there, Skip. Don't worry, Skip. Everything'll be fine, Skip._

Don repeated the words as a mantra, his own private gospel as his cracked voice struggled to drown out his friend's whimpering.

They collapsed seven minutes later, Malark crying out as he slipped and brought them both to the ground. The sickening thump and squelch went ignored, the redhead too focused on the scream and groaning from in his arms.

We're so close - _we're so close!_ Don wasn't sure if he said the words out loud, if the ringing in his ears was from his own shaking voice.

There was a moment of quiet, punctuated only by Skip's desperate attempts to muffle his cries.

His friend's back pressed to his chest where they fell, Don frantically glanced over his shoulder. He knew they were close, though he couldn't see it, only a cold and white covered road extending before him.

And a red one trailing behind.

"D-Don-!"

Snapped away from his longing stare, Malark tried to sit up, to get himself back on his feet. To take Skip with him, to get him to a medic.

_To stop his hurting._

"J-Just-"

_No_ , he thought, _don't say that_. Don't say that. Stop right there. He wanted to push his hands over his friend's mouth, force the words back inside, but his fingers were frozen in place, knotted into the fabric of the man's uniform.

There was no 'just' out here.

"J-Just-" His friend could barely get the words out, between the blood on his tongue and the freezing chill and that gaping, gaping pain- "Just k-kill me...!"

Given the choice, Don would take a bullet to the chest over those words. Heaven knew it would have hurt less.

"D-Don't be crazy, Skip-!" Swallowing his shock, his _dread_ , Malark heaved the words from his chest. Trying to act like they didn't weigh a ton, as if his trembling fingers were those of a still strong man. "D-Don't fuckin' joke like that, t-that a-ain't funny-! _That ain't funny!_ "

He tried to turn the words into a shout. They sounded far closer to a sob.

" _Don_ -"

"C-C'mon!" Skip gritted his teeth and grunted as Malark wriggled beneath him, fighting to kick his numb muscles back into action. To plant his boots on the ground and haul them both the rest of the way. "We're gettin' you to Bastogne! We're gettin' you to a medic, Skip! W-We're-! We're-!"

" _Don_."

The fight drained from Donald's body, left to finally meet his friend's eyes. Skip was looking up at him, craning his neck, matted hair falling around his glassy eyes. In the background, blurred by the snow, Don could see the man's body extended out over his own.

And the bloody mess that was once Muck's legs.

"Don. _Please_." Malark wished he could kid himself into believing he was hearing the voice of a soldier.

He wasn't. There was only the altar boy from Tonawanda.

_His best friend_.

"I-I can't do it myself..." Droplets landed across Skip's forehead as he breathed the quiet words. He didn't flinch, simply let Don blink the tears away. They turned pink where they fell, mixed with the dirt and blood on his skin. "I c-can't get in t'Heaven if I do it myself..."

Eyes squeezed shut, Malark could only shake his head desperately. A silent refusal. He didn't trust himself to speak.

" _Please_ , Don..." A freezing hand rubbed against his shoulder, a last offering of comfort before Skip's arm fell back down again, exhausted. " _It hurts_."

 

 

 

They were alone in the snow. In the cold of this icy desert.

Don didn't think he'd ever known cold like he felt then. Even with another body so close to him, held so tight. With all their shredded layers of uniform and frosted beards, he'd thought he'd feel some warmth.

_He didn't._

Skip had gone cold.

 

 

 

Don wondered if this was it. If this was what they both signed up for, what they knew would be the end.

_What they both wanted._

To be heroes, right? Die valiantly in battle. Fighting for a cause. Forcing back a terrible evil.

Because this wasn't that. Skip wasn't hit in battle. There wasn't a German in sight.

Don wondered if this was fate. If such a thing existed. If this was all pre-planned - his boots slipping on the snow as he forced himself back on his feet. If they ever stood a chance at all, if the footprints he was leaving on Belgian soil were there from the start.

If the weight in his arms was just the closing page of another tragic story.

Numb fingers buried themselves deeper into Skip's coat, the man clutched tightly to his shoulder as Malark forced his feet to _move_. One in front of the other, dragging them both onwards. Aching arms wrapped around a chilled and shivering body. A dead man's grip.

 

 

 

It must have been a sight.

All red smears and streaked faces. Whatever it was, the medic didn't comment. Only stared for a moment, eyes like saucers.

A shout echoed across the ruins of Bastogne, heads turning to see the two soldiers emerging from the fog. A blur of red crosses swept Don's vision, a hand landed on his shoulder. He felt the firm grip, the man's face, someone speaking in front of him. Inches away, but he couldn't see.

Couldn't focus.

" _Help him_."

Maybe Malark said it out loud. Maybe it was only a thought.

A stretcher appeared none the less. It was there for barely a moment, before it vanished amongst the snow. Hurrying away towards the crumbling church, carried by two hollering medics. Skip's body carried between them, laid peacefully upon the canvas.

Somehow, Don could still feel the weight in his arms regardless.

The fingers on his shoulder squeezed insistently, and Malark could finally see the man addressing him. Steering him out of the street, out of the way of the screeching trucks and ambulances.

Time quietly ticking by, all the while.


	2. Chapter 2

It was 1947, and it was snowing.

A steady hail of tiny, fragile particles. Like a rain that couldn't settle, that wanted to stay atop the world just a little bit longer. Couldn't just melt away and be gone.

As his boots crunched against the fallen snow, he managed to take a moment and stop. Tilt his head back - farther than really needed in fact - and stare straight up. At the sky and the Heavens and the gray mass of tumbling snowflakes.

He blinked, then lowered his gaze.

He had decided he hated snow.

The lock on the apartment door was already rusty, but the cold weather wasn't charming it into anything more helpful. The amount of times he'd been offered a hand in fixing it, whether manually or with a handful of bills, was hard to count. He'd lost the total pretty quickly. Just as he'd declined every offer pretty quickly.

A firm shove did the job, and he was soon climbing the terrible flight of stairs up to the next floor. It was barely twelve feet of space, not even close to a hike. But it was terrible all the same. Unnecessary.

_Painful_.

A real kick in the teeth, he thought, and he was very happy to complain. His roommate, however, never said a word on it - so they agreed to keep the talk about the stairs to a minimum.

The apartment was about as uplifting as the stairwell, and the lock matched its front door counterpart - stiff, broken, and _useless_. But it was home, right? Though it was nothing like Oregon.

_Nothing like Astoria._

Don sometimes thought he missed Astoria. Except that he didn't really miss it, per se, he just didn't prefer Tonawanda. They were the same dried up shit-holes, only with different wrapping. Where Astoria had open spaces, Tonawanda had city streets. Both had the ocean, though. And ultimately, his housing was the same.

Messy, cheap. And _cold_ , apparently.

The radiator wasn't going.

Don saw _why_ pretty quickly, shuffling inside and kicking the door shut behind him. The newspaper wrapped goods in his arms were hastily discarded on a nearby chair as he crossed the room, no more than ten strides taking him all the way to the far wall.

_To his destination_ \- A frustrated man locked in a fierce battle with their apartment's radiator. His calloused palm smacked against the metal in annoyance, the pipes trembling under the impact. Still they remained frozen, their attacker giving a low groan of despair as he threw his eyes up to the ceiling, as if begging God to spare him from his feud.

Malarkey didn't need to wait long for the display to end, squatting down beside his friend and taking his fingers to the icy metal.

"It playin' up _again_?"

Don's hand stung as the stiff valves dug into his flesh, tearing at his skin as he forced them to twist back into place. It wasn't something his roommate could do alone, though they both suffered from the shrill shriek of grinding metal that pierced their ears.

"Been splutterin' all day. Finally choked about a half-hour before you got back."

" _Mnn_." Malark's hum was agitated, his words a bitter murmur, "I told them to fuckin' fix it..."

"Yeah, well, they haven't."

Don could only huff as a response, straightening up and dusting off his jeans. A mix of snow, dust, and flour gave way under his palms, adding to the dirt across the floorboards.

The redhead left his roommate to the radiator, beginning to stir from its poorly timed slumber, and went back to his packages by the door. He kicked off his boots while there, grabbing up his supplies and unloading them onto the their tiny excuse for table.

It was crowded up against the wall, just like everything they owned, and served more as a storage space than anything else. Several tins of soup and a slightly damp loaf of bread were planted on its surface, followed by bundle of keys as Don sunk into the adjacent chair.

A sigh escaped him, his gaze looking to the soggy excuse for a newspaper his items had been wrapped him. He scooped it up in his hands, flicking idly through the pages.

"Any good?" A voice asked from across the room.

Malark hummed out a negative, turning over another page.

"Some shit with the French and Indo-China. Nothin' to write home about."

A soft laugh reached Don's ears, but he kept his focus on the running ink between his fingers.

_Sometimes it was easier that way._

"How was work?"

Another hum of dismissal from Malark. He turned over the next page.

"You gonna talk about it?"

A short grunt - _No_. Don continued to stare fixedly at the paper, though he had long since given up reading it. It was the distraction that he wanted, not the words.

The squeak of wheels and metal rolling over floorboards shattered Malark's blissful escape, his eyes falling shut as he felt the table shift beside him. A hand poked his arm, his gaze forced to lift and face the man sitting before him.

"You wanna tell me why ya' sulkin'?" Skip asked, leaning forward so his elbows rested on Don's knees.

Another heavy sigh had the redhead's chest heaving, the paper tossed back onto the table as he leant against the wall. _Away_ _from his friend_.

"I'm not sulkin'." Malark stated, struggling to keep eye-contact.

" _Sure_ you ain't." The blond man laughed, pulling back from his roommate's knees so he could sit upright in his seat.

Metal squeaked once more as Skip spun his wheelchair back towards the radiator, hands moving expertly over the awkward contraption. Don watched him go, silently reminding himself to get some damn motor oil for those damn joints.

Pieces of shit couldn't be quiet if they tried.

"You're just extra miserable is all."

Malark blinked, remembering where he was sitting.

" _I'm fine_."

"Like _Hell_ you're fine." Skip remarked, his tone losing a little of its friendly nature, "Fine as my left foot!"

Still facing the radiator, the blond didn't see his roommate visibly recoil, flinching as if he'd been struck.

" _Skip_ -!"

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't lie to me, is all." Skip continued, pulling his jacket up his shoulders aggressively, "I'm not a child, Don - I'm not an _invalid_."

"I never said you were an invalid."

"You don't have to say it to think it!"

"I don't think you're a fuckin' invalid, Skip."

"Then why're y'so fuckin' miserable every time you walk through that door?"

The wooden struts supporting Malark's back hit the wall with a clatter, his feet finding the floor with a force that surprised even him. A few quick stomps and he was tugging his boots back on his feet, ripping the laces into place like they'd bitten him.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Skip inhale, drawing in a furious breath from beside the radiator. He ignored it. _God_ , he tried to ignore it.

"I'm going out."

It was all he trusted himself to say, all he could possibly think to justify himself. A real explanation would take far too long.

And hurt _far too much_.

Don's hand was reaching for the doorknob in moments, his eyes fixed in silent determination on the floor as he tugged his jacket back around his shoulders. Wheels squeaked behind him but he refused to turn.

"Y'know, I never _asked_ you to stick around an' look after me, Don!"

The redhead stopped, the doorknob still against his fingers.

It stung deeper than the first comments. Deeper than anything else he'd heard before, in fact.

It hurt more than when the medics as Bastogne had told him he was a hero. That he was a good friend, a good man. That he'd saved another soldier's life, that he deserved a medal, when all Don could think about was how the man he'd saved was never going to walk again.

It hurt more than when they told him Skip was being moved away to a hospital in England. How he'd get proper care, how he'd live to see another war. How Don was going to be left behind, stuck out here in the charred remains of Europe. _Alone_.

It hurt more than going without any letters from the hospital in months. It hurt more than _receiving_ the first fucking letter in months, tearing it open, only to wish he could seal it all back up again and throw it away before he read it.

It hurt more than seeing Skip waiting for him when he dragged himself off the troopship back from England. Sitting there, grinning. Smiling like the world hadn't fucked them both over.

An expression of joy on his face despite having that ugly chair supporting what was left of his legs.

Don _hated_ that chair.

It was just a reminder of failure. Not Skip's, _his. His_ failure.

To protect his friend. To keep smiling. To bury the bitterness and the hurt and the loathing deep, _deep_ down where his mind could never find it.

_To do what Skip had asked him to, back in that dark forest on looking Foy._

He wondered why his knees hurt so much. Why the world suddenly seemed so fluid, so blurry. Why those wheels were suddenly squeaking violently, like someone was spinning them with a vengeance.

Why the floorboards were so much closer to his face. _Why there were drops of melted snow on them._

One hand found Don's face whilst his other supported him on the floor, kneeling in the dust and trails of snow he'd dragged in earlier. His fingers scrubbed at his eyes, desperate to remove the tears that just kept coming, unable to stem the flow. It only made his hiccups worse, the tiny whimpering sounds that shocked his chest threatening to consume him altogether.

Firm hands gripped his shoulders, a panicked and loving voice cutting through the trembling of his own body. But he didn't listen, why did he never listen. Didn't in Oregon, didn't in Georgia. Didn't in England, France, or Holland. Didn't in Germany or Austria.

_Didn't in Belgium._

And didn't listen here, in Tonawanda, either.

Skip was apologising, he was sure of it. Don felt another shard of hatred slide effortlessly into his heart. Like he didn't have the strength to resist it anymore. He didn't. God knew _he didn't_.

"Y-You remember-!" And somewhere in the blind dark he'd shut his eyes to hide in, Malark knew his friend had gone quiet, was hanging on his every word. Just like Don never could. "You remember-! O-Outside Foy-!"

And Malark was glad he didn't have to look at how Skip paled, how they both did. Because they'd never spoken about it, never dared mention it. An untouchable, _inconceivable_ topic between the two, even in their most dire struggles and conflicts. In their most bitter arguments, which had still never been  quite like this.

Never as loud and violent as this.

"D-Do you r-remember-" Don wasn't sure he was even getting real words out anymore, too caught up in the rambling, slurred thoughts he had to breathe life into, "W-What you said?"

A moment passed, then the hands on the redhead's shoulders shifted. Skip was shaking his head.

"You asked me-!" It was like trying to force razor blades up his throat, coughing up blood would have been easier, "Y-You asked me-!"

This was it, he supposed. The truth of it. The moment he admitted his failure.

Still, it was hard. Difficult in a way no battle ever was. Every time he pulled at the words, heaved and pushed and gave his all to throw them out, they seemed only to sink further from his reach. Like he was _born_ to fail.

"You asked me to kill you-" It came out in a torrent, flowing in waves as tears fell freely to the floorboards, "You asked me to fuckin' _kill you_!"

The silence spurred him on, though all he wanted was for his friend to stay something. To make him _stop_.

"Y-You asked me t' kill you and I couldn't do it, Skip, I couldn't _fucking_ do it!"

The hand Don had on his face moved up to his hair, his eyes still clamped shut as he gripped the overgrown locks as if ready to tear them out.

"I was scared an' selfish an' a coward! I was a fucking _coward_!"

His sobs had become screams by then.

"I was a Goddamn coward who couldn't even complete his best friend's dying wish because I was too fuckin' selfish to let you die like you wanted!"

A loud sniff broke through his words and Don looked up, head snapping back to stare desperately up at the man that had changed his everything.

"I wanted you to live so badly, I didn't give a shit _what_ you asked me to do!" Sobs broke back into his screams, voice cracking and crumbling away with every syllable, "I didn't want you to die because I wanted to go home with you!"

And now he had overstepped a boundary, Don could tell, as Skip stared silently back at him. Eyes wide and cheeks wet, watching him like he was a man possessed. Which wouldn't have surprised either of them.

"I wanted to come back with you-" Malark's voice was a hoarse whisper now, strained and rough and more like a wounded animal than a person, "I wanted to take you to Astoria, t'meet my mam. I wanted to see Tonawanda and go to all the places you'd talked about so passionately. I wanted to go back to college and I wanted you to be at my graduation. Hell, I even wanted to swim the Niagara with you! I wanted a degree, a good job, a real house - I wanted to have everything I could ever need and I wanted to give it all to _you_."

Don's head fell forward as he hissed out what he hoped would be his last words, burying his face in Skip's lap.

"I wanted to _live_. Together. The two of us, _together_."

Though he had never believed in wishes, all Malark wanted then was to open his eyes and find himself in bed. With a winter sunrise coming through the blinds and a sleeping Skip beside him. As if this was all a dream, another repeated nightmare.

One that Don could wake up from, run a hand over his face, and get up for work. Just like every day.

He'd look over his shoulder and see his best friend's back turned to him, chest rising and falling steadily as he slept. And he wouldn't need to think about anything, to _feel_ anything.

To consider the _what ifs_ or the _could have beens_ or the _why the fuck did you do that, Malarkey, why didn't you just do what he asked you to?_

Because Skip was there and his hair was shining in the morning light and he was _alive_.

And that was the beginning and _end_ of it.

Because that way neither of them would need to think about the consequences of actions long past changing. The million dollar question remained _unasked_ , let alone unanswered.

_Was he happy?_

His head was being lifted up, tugged from his friend's lap by two gentle hands on his cheeks. Don could only blink and sniff as another forehead pressed against his own, followed by a nose brushing his.

Suddenly he was staring into the most incredible hazel eyes, a shade of gold he had never seen before. Like the sunlight shining through the leaves on Currahee's tree line, or maybe something even better. He couldn't place it, simply sit and watch and let the tears fall.

And somehow, those beautiful eyes weren't even the best part of the face so very close to his.

It was the fact that there were creases in the skin around them.

_Skip was smiling._

"The last of those things-" Even through his own tears, the blond still managed to sound happy, "That's all that matters to me."

And maybe this wasn't what they always wanted.

Because fairytales didn't happen and you could only play with the cards you were dealt. Sometimes the stakes were a little too high or maybe you just went _all in_ on another man's bluff. Sometimes you lost, that was life.

But life also had a way of, in the worst moments, reminding you of that last _crumpled_ dollar forgotten in your back pocket.

The _what ifs_ were endless and impossible, the vast list of scenarios that could have been - but they all led back to the same conclusion.

  _None_ could guarantee that they would both be together. Right here, _right now_.

" _I love you_ , Warren Muck." Don breathed, his finger curled around the freezing metal of his friend's wheelchair. Still kneeling at the man's feet, never wanting to be anywhere else, "And I wouldn't trade you for the world."

_I wouldn't leave your side for the world, either._

 

 

 

 

Twenty-two minutes later, when they were both lying in bed and a mop of red hair was splayed across Skip's thighs, Don wouldn't wonder if this was it for him.

He wouldn't wonder because he found he didn't care, not with the gentle fingers coming through his hair and the raw skin itching around his eyes.

He was not perfect, he knew - but he was not a failure either.

Not in the eyes of the man beside him, at least. And that was enough, after all. It had always been, and _would always be_ , enough for him.

A soft kiss was planted on his forehead and Don blinked himself back to the present, head tilting back to look up at the face hovering over his. There was no pillow more comfortable than Skip's lap, he decided, a crooked smile breaking out across his face.

He couldn't help it. The grin shining down on him was just too irresistible.

 

 

 

 

It was 1947 and snow continued to fall beyond the window.

And Donald Malarkey decided that he didn't hate snow after all.

He's wasted too much time loathing things he couldn't change already.

_Loving the things he didn't want to was more important._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don works at a flour mill by the way, which is actually something he did when he was younger. And kudos to anyone who got the Vietnam reference in the paper! (Vietnam was called French-Indochina before its independence, and obviously the Vietnam war was going to come around within the decade...)
> 
> Also, I hope you enjoyed this heartbreak with a happy ending! Told you this story was a fix-it!

**Author's Note:**

> Planning to write a second chapter set post-war, dealing with the aftermath. Thanks for reading thus far!


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